Social Media Case Study : How Kalinga Lancers (HIL Team) Facebook Page Debuted with 234k Interactions

Brand Name

Hero ( HIL Team )

Agency Name

Prelude Digital

Introduction

'Kalinga Lancers', is the Odisha based 6th franchisee to make its debut in the Hero Hockey India League 2014. Promoted by Odisha Sports Development and Promotion Company (OSDPC) and jointly owned by Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO) and Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL) franchisee, it is set to make its debut in the Hero.

Within an extremely limited time, the agency was asked to implement a social media campaign to promote the first one-of-its-kind franchise team representing Odisha, not just on a national but on an international level as well. With only a month left for the first match to go, the client wanted the agency to come up with a campaign for the team Kalinga Lancers to become a household name and be potrayed as ˜THE PEOPLES TEAM.

Objectives

With no online presence of ‘Kalinga Lancers’ prior to their debut, the objective thus hovered around ensuring its online presence, ensuring activity in the page, initiating discussion and making the page interactive. The Agency decided to focus on a single major objective – making “KALINGA LANCERS” a brand to remember, increasing its overall social media engagement and attracting more Odisha based fans, Odia’s outside Odisha and Hockey Enthusiasts to the KL Facebook and Twitter page and to begin creating a dialogue on the page, in short, ‘Word of Mouth’.

Challenges

Within a very limited time period, and the target audience being more cricket frenzy than hockey, the brief by the team owners suggested pulling as much crowd to the home matches (Sale of maximum Tickets) as possible. The bigger challenge was that the whole social media campaign was sort of a first time for the people of Odisha and the client (in terms of Odisha-based campaigns) and was critical to campaign success. And so, the whole team was eager as well as excited to jump in for the opportunity.

Implementation

The campaign kicked off with the tags #GoKalinga & #BOBAAAL (BOBAAAL is an Odia word which means ‘Out of the World’) and these tags instantly connected to Odias living in any part of the world. Each post and creatives carried both the tags and within a small span of time, fans were using the tags extensively. The posts were informative and interactive.

The posts were informative and interactive. These posts were Player Profiles, Contests, Fixtures, Promotional Events & Activities, Realtime Match Updates , Exclusive Match Pictures ( 1st on Net ), Fan Pictures and Exclusive Leak-Outs .The contests varied from daily winners to weekly and match based. Users were checking and rechecking the page multiple times per day resulting in friendly, fun contests. Winners were announced almost everyday. The response was just fantastic, as we received more that 100 entries each day . By running these contest, we were able to significantly increase the number of followers on KL’s facebook and twitter page.

One of the challenges we talked about was pulling the crowd and for same, we not only did small contests every now and then wherein we gave away the exclusive team merchandise but also contests where in people had to witness the match so as to WIN the contests. Online ticket buying was also extensively promoted . Overall ‘hype’ created by the campaign ( be it contests , creative posts , apps  etc..) resulted in FULL HOUSE in the stadium for almost every match. 

Result

• Total No. Of Fans - 40,000 and counting (Third Highest Team after Ranchi Rhinos and Delhi waveriders, in terms of Likes) Page and Post Reach : 8.3 Million people during the campaign
• KALINGA LANCERS engagement during the campaign, was highest compared to other HIL teams and Hockey India Official Page
• Online ticket promotion: well received by fans that resulted to FULL HOUSE at the kalinga stadium
• Highest viewership of HIL on Star Sports (from Odisha) Source : Star Sports
• Page and it’s post generated 233,799 interactions
• Organic reach: 95% of the fan base